by P W Hillard
He reeled backwards, gripping at his chest. His mind burned with anger. He wished Carl and Chet were still with him. Vlad had found them, small-time crooks with equally small-time prospects and had elevated them from the muck and filth of humanity. He had always been harsh with them, but they had been useful. Vlad lacked the berserker form they had, instead being a natural at charming others. He had never really considered it properly, the natural variations in vampiric abilities. At this moment he would have swapped gifts in a heartbeat.
The creature sensed, its victory was near, and dragged itself slowly towards him. Vlad held his chest tight, blood pouring through his fingers. The wound was bad. Worse than he had ever had. The creature lunged again swinging its talons one wing after the other. Vlad dodged the first few, but the barrage was overwhelming. One strike caught him by the throat tearing it open, another took his legs out from under him, sending him tumbling to the floor. The creature stood over him, snarled and plunged its claws downwards into his gut. He spluttered, his shriek of pain instead bubbling out through the gap in his throat. The creature hissed. From across the room, there was a serious of melodic bongs. Vlad tried to laugh, blood splattering the creature before him as his throat spasmed.
On the far side of the recreation room, by its great windows was a clock. An ancient wooden monolith rescued from a Victorian home and brought to The Hill to sell its upmarket status. It had a grandfather clock, after all, shorthand for expense and wealth. It was ringing out to sound out the hour. It rang five times, once for each hour.
Vlad continued his futile attempts at laughter. The irony was not lost on him. He had been the architect of his own demise. These things were his creation, his fault. Even if he had escaped them, he had lost track of the time. The creature looked at him, seemingly puzzled at the smile which stretched across his face. Summoning all his remaining strength he struck once more with his makeshift weapon. The shard struck true, jamming itself into the creature's head, jutting from its jaw. It thrashed and screamed, its shrieks oddly human, before collapsing onto the ground. Vlad lay on the floor of the recreation room, blood pouring from his wounds. He turned his head, looking at the large windows that lined one side of the room. The clock had rung five, and Vlad knew what came next at this time of year. For the first time in a very long time, Vlad watched the sunrise.
Jess stood in the carpark of the address the oracle had given them. A retirement home just outside of London known as The Hill. The oracle had been very specific about the time of day they would find the vampire known as Vlad. Now they knew why it had instructed them to arrive after six AM. Inside the home was a bloodbath, the tainted blood the vampires had been selling had twisted the residents into some new kind of demi-vampire. They had rampaged through the building killing everyone, until the sun had risen. It had proven as effective against them as any normal vampire and now charred corpses filled the building alongside those that had been torn apart.
"Hell, of a mess, isn't it?" asked Mark handing her a warm coffee he had picked up from a local bakery. "Sandra and Gemma checked in, they found a few stragglers wandering around the warehouse address we were given. Seems like the charms of a vampire break when it dies. They're a bit groggy but will be fine. Small mercies hey?"
"You think he was in there? Vlad?" Jess asked. She took a long sip of the coffee. Mark had overloaded it with sugar as usual, but she still found the warm liquid soothing.
"Maybe?" Mark shrugged. "We still have a lot of bodies to identify. It does seem like he did check in though. I've got Aasif digging into the records and there is one for a Vincent Ladstone."
"So?"
"Vincent Ladstone. V Ladstone. Vlad?"
"God that's on the nose. Think it's a pseudonym?" Jess took another sip of the over-sweet coffee.
"No, I think that's his real name. A quick search in police records has a Vincent Ladstone disappearing from a hospital cancer ward over a decade ago. Guessing it's the same one we have here." Mark took a long drink from his cup.
"So, an old man becomes a vampire and what? Decides Walter White is a great role model?"
"Don't think Walter White ever turned people into frenzied killers. Then again, I never watched the last season, so maybe he did? I wouldn't know," admitted Mark.
"Well, you aren't going to have time to watch it now. We have a long list of legionnaires to arrest. No telly time for you." Jess swilled her coffee cup in her hand. "Might have to put that book you were writing on the back burner as well."
"Fat chance of that!" snorted Mark. "Weston gave me a real chewing out over that accidental printing, but…"
"But what?"
"She keeps emailing me about what happens next!"
Epilogue
Lucille looked around at her bar, taking in the damage for the first time since she had left it. In all, it wasn't as bad as she had expected. The bar itself was a write-off, as was all the alcohol behind it, along with her pumps. The building itself was still sound though, the extent of the damage to the rest being now long dried dirt. Nothing a quick mop down wouldn't fix.
"It's a sad state isn't it?" asked Abbie, picking a splinter of the bars counter up from the floor.
"It isn't too bad," Lucille replied. She stepped behind the bar, glass crunching beneath her boots. She crouched down to inspect the broken pumps. "Insurance should cover most of it. Might even be able to afford something a little bit nicer."
"I liked the bar we had. It had character. Something new just won't be the same. Besides you're lucky to be back here at all with the stunt you pulled."
Lucille stood up. A thick slime had formed where the pipes leading from the cellar to the pumps had cracked in the blast. She tried in vain to wipe her hands on her jeans having touched it by accident. "They can't prove it was me. Alibi is rock solid after all, Dale saw me in the house at the same time this supposed angel intervened."
Abbie stepped towards the bar, taking care not to touch the dried dirt. She still ached from the first face full of consecrated soil she had received. "You don't feel bad using Dale like that?"
"Honestly?" said Lucille leaning on what little remained of the bar's worktop. It wobbled worryingly. "I feel awful about it. Didn't see I had much choice though. We would still be holed up in that house right now, watching boring TV and eating ice-cream."
"And what are we going to do now? Submit an insurance claim and be closed until this is all fixed. Probably sit around watching TV and eating ice-cream. We can't leave this place either. It's not really any different is it?" Abbie tried to lean on the counter opposite Lucille but changed her mind rapidly when the counter splintered and cracked where she touched it.
"Ah," Lucille said, holding up a finger triumphantly, "at least this is home."
It had taken an incredible amount of effort. The oracle, or Titus as he now insisted on being called was enormous. Leaving him in his cavern wasn't an option and getting him out seemed unlikely. In the end, Titus was happy to be physically cut down to size. Evidently, his wet black appendages didn't feel any pain, and they seemed on close inspection to be almost plant-like in their structure. Taking a chainsaw to what was still a living being unsettled Mark, but Titus had happily chatted away the whole time.
The second issue was just where exactly to put him. A normal prison cell was obviously out of the question, and even with most of his bulk cut away he was still extremely large. Eventually, it was decided that the best place to put him was the same place the department stored everything else arcane and esoteric. The vault.
Located on the floor beneath the department's office space was an array of rooms, each with varying levels of security. The entrance was always guarded by one of the three firearms officers that the department kept on permanent staff. Access was only available with written permission from Weston. Several of the rooms had large vault doors of the kind you might normally have found in a bank. One of these had been emptied, its contents stuff into several of the already overcrowded other rooms.
Titus had been placed into the room, delivered in the middle of the night to a loading dock that led directly into the maintenance tunnels that descended to the department. He had been placed into the room and bound in place with heavy iron chains. He had been correct of course, the iron had sizzled and heated up as it had been applied to him. Once that had been done, he had settled in rather well.
"Come to entice me to use my abilities for your cause again?" said Titus as Mark handed over a mug of tea to an eagerly awaiting tentacle. It curled around the handle, lifting it to Titus' human face. He took a long drink from it. "I won't do it. I couldn't anyway, not with these chains binding me. Seems to shut down my visions." A cluster of eyes blinked as if to sell his point.
"No, you've made it very clear that you won't be using your future sight. Can't say I'm not disappointed though." Mark flicked the folding plastic chair he had carried in with his other hand. It clacked as it opened. He pressed it with his hands a few times to ensure it was sturdy, and then took a seat. "Would be really useful to us."
"I've said it once, and I'll say it again. I closed the legion because its methods were outdated. All its methods, future sight included. I gave you one as a freebie and that's it." Titus took another long sip from his mug.
"Yeah, that freebie was really useful. Handy of you to tell us the wrong time so all those people died. We could have helped them."
"You couldn't. And you would say, people, I would say monsters," asserted Titus. A small tentacle unravelled itself from under his neck and reached up to scratch his nose.
"Well, if you won't help in that way, we were wondering if you might help in another." Mark turned to face the doorway of the chamber. At the precipice stood a firearms officer. Mark nodded and the officer disappeared for a moment, reappearing carrying a large burlap bag. "I love London" said the text printed to the side. He dropped it next to Mark with a thump, and then returned to his post at the door. "These," said Mark reaching inside the bag, "are books we have recovered." He lifted a heavy leather-bound tome from the bag. "Not just from the various Legion cells, but across the years. I'm sort of the informal librarian of the department. I thought you might have some insights into things I might not understand in them."
"You want me to help you read books?" asked Titus confusedly.
"Not read them. Understand them. Explain mentions of spells and creatures I might not be familiar with. Give me an insight or two. Maybe even help me sort and catalogue the books if you prove yourself trustworthy enough."
"Let me get this straight," said Titus. "I have thousands of years of experience and you want me to be your librarian?" He sounded incredulous.
"Well, it's either this or spending your time doing nothing. Help us, or boredom. Those are your choices. Might even get time off for good behaviour."
Linda wiped her blade clean, the blood slopping off against the rag. She stood in the young woman's flat, taking care not to stand in the pooling blood. Footprints would be unwise she thought. Commodus had been careless, too hasty to complete the task. In the end the selkie, she believed she called herself Agatha, had been simple to deal with. Commodus had simply forgotten the first step of a successful hunt. Research.
Once Linda had identified the Selkie, a task made thankfully easy thanks to news of Commodus' arrest and interviews with the victim, she had waited. Selkies were capable of a remarkable and somewhat grotesque transformation, shedding skin and flesh to change from seal to human. Linda had simply gone to the woman's home and searched for it. She had found it in the boot of her car, and at that point, it was all over.
To hold the skin of a selkie is to control the selkie, to make them slaves to your will. Linda had waited, sitting in Agatha's home with the lights off. It was easy enough to order her to stand perfectly still by her bed and Linda had driven the knife into Agatha's flesh over and over. Linda had felt that rush again, that flood of endorphins brought on by vengeance. The legion might be over, but Linda had no intention of stopping her work now.
"What is it?" asked Gareth. He had set out early that morning, fully intending to check on his flock of sheep. He had stopped when he had seen the thing growing in what was technically a field, but being situated halfway up the valley was more a grassy ramp than anything else.
"Fucked if I know. Is it a plant maybe?" replied Austin. He had driven over from his own farm when Gareth had phoned him but had assumed his neighbour was pulling some kind of prank throughout the short drive.
Before them was a bizarre shapeless thing. When it had appeared early that morning it seemed to be a sort of flesh sac covered in small toothed mouths. Gareth had been dumbstruck when he had found it, keeping his distance and simply watching. Hours had passed as he stood there weirdly fascinated before he had thought to phone Austin. His neighbour kept more than sheep, so he assumed he would have more knowledge.
"It's not a plant, it had teeth this morning," clarified Gareth.
"Well, it doesn't now." Austin was right, the strange creature had seemed to almost melt, spreading out across the field, tendrils plunging into the ground. The mouths had disappeared into the moving flesh, which had taken on a green tinge. Several lumps were appearing on it, which looked like strange flower buds were it not for what appeared to be a small eyeball in the centre. "Come on then," said Austin bounding over the low stone wall that lined the field. "Let's take a closer look."
A Message from the Author
Firstly, a huge thank you for reading this. If you liked it, please do consider leaving a review. Every single review makes a huge difference to an independent author. This is the second book in the Special Investigations series, the first being Blessed by Fire. Jess and Mark also feature in Horrorscopes, my short story collection.
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Special Investigations Books
Blessed by Fire
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